editor@oakridgesports.com Oak Ridge’s 0-3 record over the weekend in the Collierville Soccer Invitational might look disastrous on face value. But, while going winless for the three-day tournament wasn’t necessarily what Lady Wildcats coach O.J. Sheppard had in mind, the Oak Ridge skipper prefers to look at the big picture. It was a highly ranked Oak Ridge team playing against three highly ranked opponents. “When you put the weekend in perspective, it was a great weekend,” said Sheppard. “We got some great experience. It was one of those weekends where we could have won all three or lost all three, like we did.” The Lady Wildcats, who drop to 8-3-0 on the season, opened tournament play Friday with a 2-1 loss to Germantown Houston. The Lady Mustangs -- after a scoreless first half -- went up 2-0 late in the game. Oak Ridge finally got on the board thanks to a Trenna Howell goal off a Brianna Buckley assist. Houston, 8-3-1, had 19 shots on goal to OR’s seven. On Saturday, the Lady Wildcats dropped a 3-1 decision to Battleground Academy. “It was 2-1 the last 10 minutes and we opened everything up trying to equalize things,” said Sheppard. Angela Lee found net for the Lady Wildcats with Howell dishing out the assist. Oak Ridge fought back despite trailing 1-0 at the half -- a first half that saw the Lady Wildcats unable to even get off one shot on goal. “I can’t remember when that happened last,” said Sheppard. “We didn’t have any shots on goal in the first half but we made some adjustments and came back. BGA (7-3-0) has got some big, physical players and a good goal keeper.” Earlier today, Oak Ridge took on Collierville in a rematch of the 2005 state Class AAA championship match. The Lady Wildcats had several opportunities early, but fell short by the all-too-familiar score of 1-0. “The first 25 minutes we must have had six to eight (scoring) opportunities that we couldn’t finish,” said Sheppard. “About 30 minutes into the game they (Collierville) had one of their girls score from about 25 yards out. It was just like the state championship game last year. We probably outplayed them for 70 percent of the game.” Oak Ridge actually had more shots on goal (11-6) than the host Lady Dragons. Sheppard added the Collierville game was the Lady Wildcats’ best effort of the weekend. Sheppard said the Lady Wildcats hope to use the tournament experience as a springboard down the road. “Houston and Collierville are teams that are gonna be going that way (to the state tournament) again. Our team, as a whole, played well. Some of our players were just inconsistent one game and then fine the next. If we came out here and won three games or two out of three we could end up peaking. You don’t want to do that this early.” Oak Ridge returns to action at 6 p.m. Thursday night as the Lady Wildcats travel to Halls. |
